Prehistoric
by Kristen Elizabeth
Summary: The past is always in the present. GSR.


Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Again, this isn't technically a post-ep, but it's hard to write those when they don't put Sara in the episide. Grumble, grumble... Hope you enjoy it anyway!

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Prehistoric

by Kristen Elizabeth

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_A beginning is only the start of a journey to another beginning. - Unknown_

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"What is it about dinosaurs?"

Was she supposed to answer his question? Was it entirely rhetorical and she should just nod quietly? Had he even been talking to her at all?

Sara had no idea. What she did know, twenty minutes into what she had optimistically decided was an official date with Gil Grissom, was that he smelled good.

Incredibly good.

It was a rainy day in San Francisco and it seemed like everyone was hiding out in the Natural History Museum. Crowded wasn't an adequate word to describe how many people surrounded them and Sara had lost count of how many times she'd been pushed directly against Grissom by an overeager child or a rude adult.

If pressed, she wouldn't have been able to describe his scent any better than to say it was amazing. There was no cologne or after-shave to which she could attribute it, nor was it enough to simply say he smelled clean.

He just smelled like Grissom. And although she'd only known him for three days, she had a sinking suspicion that no one else would ever smell quite as good to her.

"Sara?"

Oh god. He had been expecting an answer.

"Dinosaurs..." Sara stalled as she stared up at the massive bones of the museum's pride and joy, a fully assembled T-Rex skeleton. "They...remind us that we weren't the first species at the top of the food chain." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him smirk. Boosted by this, she continued, "And that if nature had taken a different course, we never would have been."

"They are humbling," Grissom agreed. Sara waited for him to go on, but he just leaned down to read the colorful information display panel that charted the Cretaceous period.

He must have been looking for a deeper, more thought-provoking answer. She'd do better next time.

"I was never into dinosaurs as a kid," Sara heard herself confess. She bit her lip from adding anything about there having been enough real monsters in her childhood. Instead, she just shrugged as merrily as possible. "But my brother was. He loved them."

Grissom straightened up. "When I was eleven, my mother took me to the La Brea Tar Pits to see the mammoth bones. I remember feeling very small standing beside them."

"'Like an insect?"

His eyes were the softest shade of blue, so how did they manage to pierce straight through her? "Exactly."

It was another second before Sara could muster up the strength, not to mention the will, to look away. "I'm really glad you wanted to come here," she murmured as she began to work her way around the display. When she was a few steps away from him, she added, "With me."

"I can't believe you haven't been here before." Grissom followed her, matching her slow pace.

"Well..." Sara stopped and looked back at him. "No one's ever asked me."

Grissom's Adam's apple bobbed. She wondered what he would do if she leaned in and kissed it. She was so focused on imagining his reaction that she missed half of his reply. "...hard to believe," he finished.

Sara blinked. "What?"

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "That was inappropriate."

Inappropriate? She wanted to laugh. Inappropriate didn't even begin to cover the steamy content of her dreams for the past two nights.

"I'm not offended." Sara hesitated. "Far from it, actually."

His expression was strained. If she'd reached out and smoothed away the crease in his brow, would he have pulled away or let her touch him. "Sara, I'm not..."

Just then, a heavy body trying to squeeze past them slammed into her shoulder, propelling her forward.

Straight into Grissom's arms.

He caught her, steadied her. She was surrounded by his scent and when she looked up, she noticed that his eyes were even bluer close up.

It would be many long years before she knew what posessed him to brush his mouth against hers in the crowded museum, directly underneath the fossilized bones of a giant predator. And it would be just as many years before he did it again.

Right then, however, it didn't matter why he did it. He had kissed her. Gil Grissom had kissed her.

If any of her female co-workers found out, she'd be the envy of the SFPD crime lab for years.

Grissom cleared his throat forcing Sara to open her eyes. "We should get back to the convention hall." His tone was stiff. Formal. "It was...unprofessional of me to miss Dr. Lyman's lecture."

Her lips were still tingling. "I'm sorry."

"I asked you, Sara." There was a touch of annoyance his voice now. Was it directed at her or himself? "I just...shouldn't have."

She was having trouble swallowing. "I do a lot of things I shouldn't," she managed to tell him.

"I don't."

There it was. Reality, in black and white, with little room for interpretation. Maybe a lesser man would have taken her back to his hotel room and given her a night to remember...but did she really want a lesser man?

And did she really want only one night with Gil Grissom?

On their way out of the museum, Sara ducked into the gift shop while Grissom thought she was in the restroom. She made a single purchase which she hid in her purse.

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Seven years later, Sara came out of her bathroom in nothing but a towel and caught Grissom sitting on the edge of the her rumpled bed, holding the tiny model of a T-rex in his hands.

"How long have you had this?" he asked.

"Since that day." She sank down beside him and rested her chin on his bare shoulder. "Where I go, it goes."

He ran his thumb over the molded plastic. "All I had was a museum brochure with your phone number on it." Grissom paused for so long that she started to be afraid of what he might not be saying. That this had all been a huge mistake and that they should forget the past week of crazy hot sex and go back to being whatever they'd been before Nick had been kidnapped.

When he finally went on, he did so with quiet conviction. "I think my life started that day."

Sara eased the toy away from him and set it aside. She stood up and let the towel puddle around her feet. It thrilled her the way his eyes devoured her naked flesh, as if he was seeing her body for the first time.

She planted a knee on either side of him and gracefully installed herself on his lap. "Want to be inappropriate, Gilbert?"

Before she knew it, she was on her back and he was hovering over her. He stopped just long enough to give her a slow kiss that left Sara whimpering.

"You make me feel larger than life, Sara," he whispered when they were joined again.

Her tongue found his Adam's apple and she smiled in delight. He did taste as good as he smelled.

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Fin


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